Technology Transportation Technology Center Inc’s (TTCI) Facility for Accelerated Service Testing (Fast) is currently engaged in various research programmes for components and technologies, including comparing the performance of rail types provided by different suppliers, as Joseph LoPresti, scientist, and Semih Kalay, senior vice-president at TTCI, explain.

CANADIAN National Railway (CN) says 64% of its $C 2.5bn ($US 1.9bn) capital investment budget in 2017 will be used to upgrade track and structures.

THE quest to bring standard-gauge rail to Africa has gained traction following an announcement from the Tanzanian government that it is seeking bidders for the construction of the final portion of the new line that it plans to build between Dar es Salaam and Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

THE digitisation of the railways has been the major topic for some time now. This was clearly evident at InnoTrans last September, where the potential for digitising the railway system was defined and presented. In 2017, this trend will surely continue as new products and smart solutions become operational. This is a positive development for the railway which should make use of state-of-the-art tools and methods.

BRITISH infrastructure manager Network Rail (NR) successfully completed £100m of infrastructure upgrade work comprising 200 projects over the Christmas period, with a team of 24,000 accumulating 600,000 hours of work over the 10 days.

EVRAZ announced on December 20 that it has set up production of European 60 E1 100m-long raw or head-hardened rails.

VOSSLOH announced on December 5 that it has signed an agreement to acquire North American rail infrastructure company Rocla Concrete Tie for $US 117.2m at the beginning of 2017 subject to merger control clearances.

PRODUCTION of pre-stressed concrete sleepers has started at a new plant built in Bolivia by Bolivian Cement Company (Soboce) and equipped, set up and tested by Wegh Group, Italy.

A ground breaking ceremony was held in California on November 29 for the $US 700m five-year first phase of the 40-year $US 6bn North Coast Corridor (NCC) infrastructure improvement project.

GERMANY’s Federal Railway Authority (EBA) has granted Alstom approval for operational testing for its NBT ballastless slab track system, which is designed for use at speeds of up to 360km/h.